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Victoria man takes STEP toward career in sheet metal

Aaron Smith turned to British Columbia's Skills Trade Employment Program to transition from being a general labourer to a sheet metal worker with Apollo Sheet Metal LTD in Victoria, B.C. September 6, 2013.

Photograph by: Arnold Lim
, For Postmedia News

Aaron Smith was a general labourer in the construction industry when he decided he needed a change.

He had gone straight into the workforce after high school. By the time he was in his mid-30s, making $18 an hour to support his wife and two daughters, he was ready to take on something new. But he sensed he was at the upper limits of where his qualifications could take him.

“I was kind of at the point where the jobs I was at just really weren’t going to take me to where I wanted to get to,” the 37-year-old Victoria worker says. “I was just really looking for more.”

He turned to Kevin McTavish, the Victoria representative for British Columbia’s Skilled Trades Employment Program (STEP).

McTavish asked Smith to tell him three trades he was interested in taking up. Smith told him sheet metal worker, electrician and refrigeration.

“It took maybe a couple of months, but he was able to find me a job placement (in the sheet metal trade),” Smith says.

In January, Smith’s new career as a sheet metal worker began. His initial placement as a materials handler shifted into an apprenticeship three months later. “It’s really an interesting trade,” he says. “It’s very dynamic.”

He’s now working for Apollo Sheet Metal Ltd., a Vancouver-area firm that is doing work on a helicopter squadron facility in Victoria. In May, Smith starts his first six-week classroom session at Camosun College, something he’ll have to do annually for four years.

McTavish says the fact Smith would be on the job the majority of the time while he earned his qualifications as a sheet metal journeyman was the main reason he suggested this path.

“He’s a young guy, married with a couple of kids,” McTavish says. “The idea of just not having any employment and just going to school was unrealistic, at the best. You have to keep the paycheques rolling in.”

McTavish added that demand for sheet metal workers is poised to increase in Victoria when the federal government starts a major shipbuilding project there next year.

Smith’s work is focused on building the metal air ducts in ceilings. He says he’s adapted quickly.

“I was kind of hands-on right away,” he says. “I would get shown how to do something, and then I was able to do it. ... I had had enough construction experience and whatnot, and it was something that I picked up on right away.”

At first, Smith’s pay fell to about $13 an hour when he started his work in the sheet metal trade. He’s had two raises since starting and is up to more than $18. But he will still have to deal with short work disruptions for school in each of the next four years.

He anticipates earnings potential of about $35 an hour when he receives his sheet metal worker journeyman’s licence at the end of the process.

“We’ve really had to incur some debt, especially in this first year, and we’ll continue to go into debt for probably another year until we get to the point where we can start climbing out of it,” he says. “We just looked long-term, and I know it’s going to be worth it.”

Smith gets some financial relief from STEP, which bought him some tools to get started, and his tuition is being paid for by his union, the Sheet Metal Workers International Association.

STEP has been operating since 2006. Its website says about 6,000 people have been assisted by it so far, and more than 2,000 are expected to go through it over the next year. It’s run by the British Columbia Construction Association and funded by the federal and provincial governments.

Shirley Bond, B.C.’s minister of jobs, tourism and skills training, said in a statement to Postmedia News: “The program has proved valuable for both employers and employees, and as new construction projects ramp up across the province, we expect STEP to play an important role in recruitment efforts.”

Aaron Smith turned to British Columbia's Skills Trade Employment Program to transition from being a general labourer to a sheet metal worker with Apollo Sheet Metal LTD in Victoria, B.C. September 6, 2013.

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